There's Always Room For Ponies
by Missie2
Summary: Who doesn't like ponies? When Jessie gets a temporary leave of absence to spend the weekend with a collection of the world's fanciest ponies, Buzz is worried she won't want to come home...
1. Chapter 1

There's Always Room for Ponies

It's been an absolute eternity since I wrote any fanfiction, but Toy Story 3 has got my juices flowing again. Anyway, this is a drabble.

I own nothing, especially Toy Story 3.

...

Despite being free of the usual constraints and less-than-flattering behaviours of the average human, the average toy was not above a little pettiness every now and then. Therefore, Jessie's overenthusiastic use and abuse of Buzz' 'Spanish Mode' was punished accordingly when he found her weakness and picked at it.

Jessie liked animals. Especially horses. Well, what girl didn't? But since Jessie was a dyed-in-the-wool cowgirl (literally) her liking hinged on mildly obsessive. Buzz observed this one day when Hamm had been rapidly switching channels back and forth between a tawdry soap opera, the condensed Big Brother update, a British cooking show and a steeplechase. Jessie had been talking to Woody about something, but whenever the steeplechase was on, even for a fraction of a second, her gaze wandered towards the TV and she forgot what she was saying. Woody eventually got frustrated and wandered off, and as soon as he did Jessie marched over to Hamm and wrestled the remote off of him so she could watch the steeplechase.

So Buzz conducted what he called a 'social experiment' but most other people would call a 'prank.'

Every now and then, usually in conversation with another toy, he would find a reason to slip the word 'horse' or 'pony' into a sentence, and watch Jessie out of the corner of his eye to see if she reacted. She did. Every time.

"You know," he said once to Slinky, "I don't think Bonnie'll be going to school tomorrow. She sounded a little _hoarse!" _Jessie looked up from her book, startled and confused, and Buzz stifled a chuckle.

"I know you feel good about carrying around almost fifty dollars in cash now," he said on another occasion to Hamm, "but just remember; one of these days Bonnie's going to want you to _pony _up the dough."

Jessie had been on the other side of the room helping the Little Green Men stand on their heads, but as soon as she heard the trigger word she turned around to look for the pony, and the poor rubber toys went head over heels. Buzz sniggered uncontrollably, much to Hamm's disgust.

"There'll be trouble if she finds out you're doing a Pavlov's Dog on her, bub," the piggybank admonished. Buzz just nodded, snorting all the while.

The next time he did it, he just did away with subtlety and whispered '_Ponies!_' as she was walking across the window ledge. This promptly earned Buzz the animosity of all the other toys, because Jessie was so astonished she jumped, and fell right out of the open window.

Luckily, she landed in a pile of cut grass that had built up in the garden, and only her pride was wounded. She refused to speak to Buzz for a week, which was also how long it took for the smell of mown grass to fade from her clothes. And as bad as Buzz felt about that, he simply couldn't stop. It was as addictive as...a very addicting substance.

...

Bonnie's parents were progressive people who didn't like to define their child by her gender and so Bonnie was encouraged to play with gender-neutral toys. Bonnie's classmate and brand-new BFF Imogen was not. Imogen was the girliest girl that ever girled, floral-sundresses-and-twin-ponytails-and-tea-parties-and-ballet-and-PONIES all in one chubby-cheeked package. She was the closest thing the little class had to an idol and her friendship was hotly battled over amongst the girls.

Until Bonnie won it by pulling a cowgirl out of her backpack one morning.

Imogen had squealed, clapped her hands together and begged bonnie to let her play farms with the cowgirl doll. And while Bonnie had little interest in playing farms (which seemed to mostly consist of Imogen having Jessie herd various animals from point A to point B) she basked in the adoration of her new friend and the envy of her classmates.

"You're so lucky," Imogen simpered. "I wanted a cowgirl too but Mummy couldn't find one for me. She gave me a Barbie instead, but she's just wearing cowboy boots."

"I have a cowboy too!" Bonnie boasted, eager for more admiration.

"I don't like boys. They're icky and smell bad," Imogen said prissily. "Girls are better at everything. Especially farming. All my ponies are girls."

"You have ponies?" Bonnie's eyes widened, and if either of them had cared to notice they would have seen that Jessie's did too.

"I got lots," the other girl said smugly. "I've got Melody, and Toolaroola, and Sweet Stuff, and Cheerilee and Buttons and Bright Eyes and I even have Diva!"

Bonnie was a little too young to understand the concept of sucking up, but instinctively she knew she had to curry favour with this girl to gain access to her fabulous array of ponies. After all, she only had Bullseye and Buttercup, and while they were perfectly nice horses they weren't of the calibre Imogen was used to. Bullseye was a rag doll and Buttercup a fairground prize. Imogen's ponies were actual, brand-name MLPs!

"Could I maybe play with one of your ponies some time? While you're playing with Jessie?" she asked tentatively.

"Like a swapsie? Sure! If you let me borrow your cowgirl for the weekend, I'll let you have two of my ponies. I'll even give you my special one!"

And so a deal was struck. And Bonnie was so excited that she didn't here Jessie desperately trying to stifle her own excited screams.

...

Woody cast a quick look around the room to see if he could slip anyone into his place in front of Jessie, but to no avail. They were all conveniently busy or not present. Hamm had briefly wandered by, but when Woody tried to make eye contact with him the porcelain porker had just scuttled past without looking at him. Buzz was skulking around, but that was no good because Jessie still wasn't speaking to him.

She hadn't stopped rambling on and on about the swapsie since she'd gotten home from Sunnyside. How could one person talk so much about one subject?

"...the Paradise Estate! Emily had the Paradise Estate too, except she lent it to her cousin and she set it on fire, but Imogen takes really good care of her toys! You can fit fifteen ponies in the Paradise Estate, except they have to be baby ponies..."

Woody sighed. His plastic ears ached. Buzz skulked up and tapped Jessie lightly on the shoulder.

"So, uh...these ponies...just how big are they?" he asked her.

If she'd heard him speak, she was doing an excellent job of pretending she hadn't.

"She's got DIVA, Woody! And dammit that is one fine horse! I got nothing against Barbie or nothin' but no horse that good was ever meant for a Barbie!"

Buzz's lips quivered a little. The last time Woody had seen him look so depressed he'd been wearing an apron and a kicky little hat. The cowboy felt sorry for his friend, even if he had brought this on himself.

"Well, the swap does sound like an excellent idea, give you a break from all this masculine energy for a while," said Woody. He tried to draw Buzz into the conversation. "Don't you agree, Buzz?"

Buzz opened his mouth gratefully to speak, but Jessie talked right over him.

"You know what? I'm gonna go wait in Bonnie's backpack. I'm too damn excited!"

She skipped away, yodelling cheerfully to herself all the while. Buzz slumped to the floor in despair.

"This is it, isn't it?" he said, more to himself than to Woody.

"This is what?" Woody asked.

"The end," Buzz moaned. "She's never coming back. She's going to go live with the ponies and become their queen and rule them with an iron fist, and I'll never see her again."

"For the love of...man up, Buzz!" Woody snapped. "I haven't seen such a cowardly countenance since you were Mrs Nesbit!"

"I thought we agreed never to mention that again," Buzz said flatly.

"The situation calls for it, little missy," Woody growled. "You get over there and apologize to her before she leaves, or the next time you see her she'll be leading an army of ponies against you."

Seeing the sense in his friend's advice and begrudgingly swallowing his pride, Buzz stood up, took a deep breath and marched over to the backpack to express his regret. And he would have said sorry too, had Bonnie not careened into the room at that moment to go to bed.

The next morning, Bonnie held her backpack on her lap all morning in a state of pure anticipation. Buzz lost his chance, and was destined to spend the whole day in a state of demented melancholy.

...

That evening, when Bonnie returned and dropped her backpack upstairs, the toys crowded around to meet the visitors and see what all this pony business was about. It took just one dainty hoof to shake its way out of the bag for them to be utterly charmed, and by the time the sparkling white pony had climbed out, shook her wings and tinsel-laden hair and beamed a gracious smile at her hosts, the entire room was bowled over.

"Good afternoon," the pony trilled in tones clear as a glass bell. "I am Princess Tiffany. It's a pleasure to be here." She even managed to curtsy.

Her companion struggled a little with exiting the bag, but she stepped out onto the bed with grace equal to Princess Tiffany. She affected a deeper curtsy, dipping to touch her nose delicately to the bedspread. She was pale blue with bright yellow hair and a spiral horn on her forehead.

"My name is Sunbeam. Thank you all for taking care of us this weekend."

The toys looked at each other. And then they practically fell over themselves to welcome and attend to the delightful new visitors. In a corner by himself, Buzz groaned loudly in despair.

If the ponies at Imogen's were anything like these two, Jessie was definitely never coming back.


	2. Chapter Two

There's Always Room for Ponies

Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews, lovely people! I've been out of it so long I forgot how good reviews make me feel!

A quick note: I always imagined Jessie to have something of a PG-pottymouth that they couldn't depict in the film, perhaps because I'm putting a little too much of my own personality into this. I'm ridiculously girly myself so people tend to be surprised when they hear me swear. Also, the ponies in this are based on real, brand-name My Little Ponies. How do I know this?

Because I went to a My Little Pony Convention. Stop judging me!

I own nuttin'.

…..

Princess Tiffany and Sunbeam were perfect guests in Bonnie's room. They exclaimed at the picture wall and dubbed Bonnie 'a burgeoning Rembrandt'. Sunbeam complimented Buttercup on his beautifully shaped horn and Princess Tiffany cooed over Bullseye's fine stitchwork. They shook their pretty manes in unison and listened intently when Woody explained about the kind of games Bonnie liked to play. This was the only time their smiles dropped.

"Goodness," Princess Tiffany exclaimed when Woody described the evil plans of Evil Doctor Porkchop. "That sounds rather scary!"

"Imogen doesn't play rough. We're not used to it," Sunbeam added.

"But you guys are plastic, right?" Rex asked them. Being something of a coward himself, he sympathised with their worries. "It can be scary, but Bonnie won't break us!"

"We're not worried about breaking," said Sunbeam. "We're worried for our hair."

The toys exchanged puzzled looks as the ponies tossed their manes. The tinsel shimmered in the afternoon light and made them look more like ornaments than toys.

"Our hair gets tangled easily," Sunbeam explained.

"And sometimes it needs to be replaced, and that's a lot of work," said Princess Tiffany.

Bonnie's toys all thought that was a stupid reason to be worried, but they said nothing. After all, Jessie was the only toy Bonnie had with brushable hair and so the only one who could empathise.

Just then, Bonnie finished her dinner and threw herself into the room to play with her new toys. The toys were eager for some playtime (except Buzz, who was busy drowning in despondency). What fantastic plot would their imaginative little mistress come up with today? Would Bullseye wake up from his coma to find that his beloved Trixie had married Rex? Would brave Sherriff Woody team up with his time-travelling long-lost brother Buzz to foil Mr Pricklepant's scheme to fill the world with broccoli? Would Slinky dog be trapped in the deep canyon of Sideofthebed, unable to get out and forced to eat his own legs? Would ALL of these things happen in the one game?

No.

Because Bonnie plonked herself down with Princess Tiffany and Sunbeam and brushed and styled their hair. For three hours.

….

Three hours with no recreation gave Buzz plenty of time to start planning on how to win Jessie back from the ponies. In his head, with his Cary-Grant-esque smile grafted to his plastic face, he thought of and discarded over a hundred plans.

"Somehow I'll have to make her hate ponies, right?" he thought furiously. "So if I could get her to associate something unpleasant with ponies….no, no, no! That's the kind of mind game that got us in trouble in the first place. What if I got the world's greatest pony and brought it here? Or even better, a horse! Horses are better than ponies, right? So all I have to do is get the world's greatest horse and bring it here! How do I do that?"

The poor plastic space ranger had never thought so hard and so fast in his life, he felt like his circuits were melting. It somehow even felt worse than when he and Jessie had faced certain doom together in the incinerator. They nearly died, but at least they would have died together. Losing her because he'd been stupid and taken a joke too far would be horrific.

For Buzz, there was no such thing as two halves of a whole. Woody and Bo had made each other complete, and for all his brave face Woody was half of his former self without her. Buzz, however, stood alone in his own franchise. The toy company had manufactured him to be a stand-alone, with no love interest, because it would have to be someone of equally powerful character to stand beside him. And not through her original theme but through the strength of her own personality, that was Jessie.

They could be together or they could be apart; they didn't need one to compliment the other, and they wouldn't have wanted it any other way. But being together made everything just a little more fun, every day a little bit brighter, every game more suffused with brilliance.

They didn't need each other.

But they _wanted _each other.

Well, Buzz did, at least. Maybe now, all Jessie wanted was ponies.

Buzz frowned at the thought. He was _the _Buzz Lightyear! He couldn't be so easily replaced by a few mangy pieces of plastic horseflesh! And as soon as Jessie came back home (and she would, Bonnie was very fond of her and would demand her back at some point) he would force her to talk to him, they'd argue for a bit, she'd slap him, he'd punch her arm a bit, they'd make out and all would be forgiven. Just like any other fight they'd had, really.

…

When the weekend was over and Bonnie went back to Sunnyside, the toys were relieved to see the back of the ponies. Not only had they made their mistress incredibly boring and inexplicably obsessed with styling their hair, they had fretted over every single thing that was out of their comfort zone.

Sunbeam had refused to sit on the window, because the sun would fade her colours.

Princess Tiffany gave the bed a wide berth, fearing the dust bunnies would ruin her complexion.

They both screamed when there was water in the vicinity.

It was exhausting having to comfort them every few minutes. And according to Mrs Potato Head, they were right little gossips. They claimed to have seen Dolly dye her felt hair and Trixie drawing her pink cheeks with crayon, both of which were malicious lies.

The toys couldn't wait to have Jessie back. Sure, she could be loud and obnoxious, but at least Bonnie's room didn't offend all her delicate sensibilities. Buzz bounced around on his tiptoes in anticipation, waiting for the sound of the car in the drive and Bonnie's stomping gait up the stairs.

Finally, it happened. She charged into the room, dropped her backpack on the bed and dashed back downstairs for dinner. Buzz leapt onto the bed, tore open the zip of the bag and hurriedly mouthed off his apology before he even had the bag open.

"Jessie! I'm sorry I knocked you out the window, I'm sorry I kept teasing you about ponies, can we just…."

He trailed off, a look of complete disgust on his face. Then he dropped the lid of the bag and stomped off, growling with frustration. The other toys curiously approached the bag and peered inside.

Two pretty ponies, smaller than Princess Tiffany and Sunbeam, with clear cellophane wings and little antennae tripped lightly onto the bedspread. One was pale green with bright yellow hair, the other was purple with white hair. Their wings fluttered lightly as they tossed their manes extravagantly, which the toys were already realizing was a thing that the ponies did for attention.

"Good afternoon, everyone," said the purple pony. "My name is Forget-Me-Not."

"And I am Morning Glory," said the green pony.

"We are delighted to meet your acquaintance," they said in unison. Everyone felt a little sick to their stomach.

"It's very nice to meet you both," began Woody amiably. "But we were expecting our friend to come back today. What's going on?"

The ponies giggled, as Woody shot a nervous glance back towards Buzz. The spaceman had a look that, had it been a sword, would have chopped off the heads of the little ponies.

"Miss Jessie is staying for a while," said Morning Glory.

"Imogen is extending the terms of the swapsie," said Forget-Me-Not.

"Miss Jessie is the best farmer we ever had!"

"Even Diva likes her, and Diva doesn't like anyone!"

"She is wise and magnanimous…"

" …and so pretty…."

"….she's the best Queen ever!" they finished together.

Woody groaned inwardly. Buzz was NOT going to take this well. Hell, even Woody wasn't taking it well. These little brats had pretty much kidnapped his baby sister! Ah well, nothing for it but lots of male bonding with Buzz, fishing trips and commiserations and going out to neighbouring houses to chat up Barbies and moan about lost love. He turned around to offer a comforting word to Buzz…

…who wasn't there.

…

Up on Bonnie's craft shelf, Buzz was scribbling furiously on a sheet of sugar paper with a felt tip pen.

Buzz's 'Reclaim My Woman' Plan

*Eliminate Woody; he'll only slow me down.

*Find out where Imogen lives; question small annoying ponies.

*Get to Imogen's house; Bike? Car? Bus? Other?

*Pack bludgeoning tool; ponies may need to be pacified.

*Kidnap the best horse in the room; apparently, this is Diva?

*Grab my woman; hightail it out of there.

*Make sure Jessie doesn't hear me call her 'my woman.'


	3. Chapter 3

There's Always Room for Ponies

Chapter 3

Sorry it took so long to get this written and uploaded, I've been swamped with nonsense lately. Time to lose myself in more nonsense! Also, as dismissive as I am of the ponies in this fic, I was a real Imogen when I was little so I'm mostly poking fun at myself.

Thanks for the reviews, everyone! I'm glad you like it!

I don't own Pixar. If I did, I'd probably still write fic for it.

….

Buzz kept a low profile for the rest of the night, skulking about trying to put his plan together. Thankfully, the new ponies required a lot of attention from the other toys; they both suffered terribly with nerves. Morning Glory screamed like a cat with pins stuck in it when a dust bunny floated towards her from under the bed, and Forget-Me-Not kept asking over and over if Bonnie would remember to brush their hair. She was terrified it would get tangled, and her tinny obnoxious voice was constant background noise that set Buzz' plastic teeth on edge.

Ideally, he would have preferred to have left that night, but the logistics were impossible. He had no idea where Imogen lived, and couldn't get Rex or Trixie to investigate via the internet without arousing suspicion. Of course, he could have asked the ponies, but that was one level he wouldn't stoop to. Also, it would have been very difficult to get around even at night without being seen, and even if this Imogen lived nearby to take a walk around the block would take him until dawn.

No, the best thing to do would be to scramble into Bonnie's backpack and sneak off to Imogen's via Sunnyside. The approaching morning was Friday, and this plan meant he'd probably have to spend the weekend surrounded by ponies, which he was pretty sure was his least favourite animal. He shuddered, imagining a gigantic pink room full of the plastic irritants, simpering and gossiping and giggling and generally being a nuisance. Was he prepared to go that far? For Jessie?

Damn right!

…..

Morning popped up slowly but surely, and Bonnie dashed about in her usual way, gulping down her breakfast in five minutes and taking an hour to brush her teeth. She argued with her mother about wearing her vampire costume to school and squeezed out a few tears when her hair was being brushed. While all this was going on, Buzz inched closer to her backpack until he was right beside it. He pulled down the zip and pushed his leg in….

"Ouch!"

….he withdrew it quickly and peered inside. The pea kids peered back out at him. If Buzz had veins, the little ones in his forehead would have been popping like crazy.

"Mr Lightyear? Why are you trying to get in Bonnie's backpack?" one of the peas asked.

Buzz had to think fast. The peas would ruin his plan by broadcasting it all over the room, and then Woody would either try to stop him or round up a posse and come with him. Neither was a good option.

"It's a top secret mission!" he told them in hushed tones. "And you have to switch places with me!"

Their eyes were embroidered and couldn't get wider, but they looked excited all the same.

"Top secret? Wow!" the triplets said in unison.

"Yes," said Buzz. "A top secret reconnaissance mission to Sunnyside. It's going to take me all weekend to gather the data I need, so you can't tell anyone where I've gone. Okay?"

The peas nodded, excited. Buzz knew as soon as he was gone they'd tell everyone, but at least by then he'd be long gone. They hopped out of the backpack and Buzz pulled himself in. He'd just about gotten the zip closed when Bonnie ran in, grabbed the bag and ran back out to get in the car.

…..

He made some brief, cursory chitchat with Barbie, Ken and the other Sunnyside toys but his main focus was always on finding Imogen's backpack and sneaking his way into it. As it turned out, this wasn't difficult at all. Only one backpack in the cloakroom had a giant pony with a brushable tail emblazoned on it. And even if that hadn't been a major clue, Imogen's name was stencilled on it in bubble writing.

Clambering into it, he accidentally spilled a small tub of glitter over his left leg and put his hand on a tube of strawberry-scented lip gloss. The cloying scent got up his nose and made him cranky. This however, was tempered by the excitement that his plan had worked and he'd see Jessie soon. And after all this effort, how could she refuse to talk to him?

…

At last, he found himself in Imogen's room. Imogen had placed the bag down gently on a plush armchair in the corner of her enormous bedroom and walked down the hall to chat to her sister. Buzz risked a look outside, and groaned. The room was huge, pink, sparkly and crammed with ponies. There were ponies stencilled on the skirting boards, there were silver ponies dangling from the ceiling shade, ponies danced and pranced in the curtains, and that was before you saw the shelves that lined up every wall of the room, each one stacked with ponies.

Even the books were pony books. It was complete pony overload.

Buzz felt a bit queasy.

Imogen strolled in after a time, but didn't unpack her bag. Unusually for a girl who'd just come home from school, she was wearing a spotless pale blue frock with ruffles along the hem and her hair was done up in two smooth pigtails, not a strand out of place. She pulled a beautifully made wooden dollhouse into the middle of the room, picked three ponies and a horse and settled herself in front of the house to play. She made the ponies dance and sang a tune for them in a way that screamed 'I'm in the junior glee club!'

"_Cici my playmate_

_Come out and play with me_

_And bring your dollies, three _

_Climb up my apple tree_

_Slide down my rainbow_

_Into my cellar door_

_And we'll be jolly friends_

_Forever more_

_More, shut the door!"_

_Just as she was launching into the second verse, Imogen's sister marched into the room and scowled deeply at the little girl. There was roughly a ten year age gap between the two of them and the teenager towered over Imogen, who put on her best innocent face._

"_What have you done to my Veritas?" Imogen's sister demanded. _

"_Nothin," Imogen shrugged. "What's wrong with her?"_

"_You took her outfit for your stupid ponies, didn't you?" the sister hissed. "I'm telling Mom! Those things are EXPENSIVE, Imogen!"_

"_I didn't touch it!" Imogen protested. _

_Imogen's sister marched downstairs, calling for her mother and Imogen followed, protesting. The ponies by the dollhouse stirred and called through the window of the house to someone inside. _

"_Imogen's going to get in trouble," said the yellow unicorn with blue hair. _

"_It's not good to tell lies," said the blue one with a mirror on her flank. _

"_Don't worry about it," drawled the familiar southern twang from inside the house. Buzz's insides did a little flip. "She can't prove anything."_

_The argument downstairs died down and the sisters forgot their conflict to watch some talent show on TV together. The toys felt free to start moving around, and soon the room was swarmed with the little ponies. Buzz watched from the backpack as the door of the dollhouse opened and Jessie marched out…._

…_.looking for all the world like a queen. _

_(Well, not the queen of the ponies. Queen of pirates, maybe, but not ponies.)_

_The elaborate green brocade dress she wore got stuck in the door on the way out, and she issued a long-suffering sigh as she tugged it out with one hand and placed an equally elaborate hat (with an enormous white feather) on her head. Her hair was loose, and this appeared to be an annoyance to her because she kept brushing it back. _

_Buzz didn't know it, but a huge goofy grin was spread across his face as he struggled to extricate himself from the backpack. Not easy to do with a tube of lip gloss stuck to your hand. His foot got caught in the zipper and he pulled at it, hard, finally ripping free only to tumble right off the bed and onto the floor, in front of the doll he wanted to see and two hundred surprised ponies, in an explosion of glitter and strawberry scent. _

_Looking up, he saw that the entire room had fallen still and quiet. The ponies were watching him, mouths agape. Jessie was staring at him as though she couldn't believe he was there, half-frowning and half-confused. Buzz gulped. what could he do but…?_

_He offered a shaky grin. _

"_Tada…!" he said softly._

_And then, she grinned back. _

…_._

_Note: If you want to see the exact outfit Jessie's wearing, type 'Pullip Veritas' into google image and you'll see. _


End file.
